Developing Skills

There was some idle chit-chat in the senior common room this week about Mario Testino and some vulgar little magazine that lies around in dental surgeries.

This brought to mind my own talents in this area, as winner of the Northern Hemisphere Box Brownie Prize 1975 (historic monuments section: picture, dear Reader, a self-portrait of a youthful Ada wistfully leafing through the Encyclopedia Britannica upon a dolmen*).

I have wasted no time in brushing up my skills.

A darkroom with acid bath has been installed in my office, next to the drinks cabinet.

Here, to set the scene, is the Humanities Beacon sign (with vice-chancellor rampant and bursar couchant), taken once I had cleared the area of first-year students demanding to know where the Humanities Beacon was:

More soon, dear Readers, once I have held my sherry soirée for the new tutees.**

Perhaps Mr Testino might like to visit your darkroom to see more of what you, dear Dr Ada, are producing…… he began his career renting an abandoned room in a hospital. Darkrooms, attics, hospitals – they all have a familiar ring about them don’t you think?

Just a a thought Adelaide – have you still got my lucky protractor that I lent you in double Maths? I’m thinking of taking a GCSE in Maths – it’s never too late for self-improvement is it? The blame for my failed O-level lies partly at your door because I didn’t have the lucky protractor in my pencil case on the day of the exam. Your companion could look for it while she is up in the attic.

I have no idea what you are talking about – the only protractor I know of is the one the police took away in an evidence bag. Poor Miss Fermat. The theorem classes were never quite the same without her.